Last Train from Cuernavaca Read Online Free Page A

pile.
    When three of them proved too heavy for her, she took the rope used to dislodge tree stumps and tied it to an ankle. She climbed up the embankment, looped the other end around the saddle pommel, and led the mare along the rim, dragging the body away. She repeated the operation for the second and third.
    She uncovered Arquímedes lying face up in the shallow water. His lightless eyes stared at heaven. She knew he was dead, but she knelt next to him and put her ear to his heart anyway. He groaned.
    â€œÂ¡Ay, Dios!” She jumped back and realized that Arquímedes had not made the sound. Antonio had.
    â€œDream with the angels, colli .” Angela made the sign of the cross over Arquímedes and rolled him away. Antonio lay on his side underneath, his body almost hidden by black sludge. His head was cradled on his arm as if asleep on his reed mat at home. It kept his nose barely above water.
    Angela sat in the mud, lifted his head into her lap, put her arms around him, and sobbed. She was making God extravagant promises in exchange for Antonio’s survival when he opened his eyes.
    â€œWhere did the bullet go in, Ugly?” she asked.
    â€œI don’t know, Brat.”
    â€œWhere do you hurt?”
    â€œEverywhere. What about the others?”
    â€œThey are with God.”
    â€œThe old man, too?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThe devil take the sons of whores.”
    â€œWhy did they do it?”
    â€œThey wanted us to tell them where the men went.”
    â€œThe ones who ran into the hills to join Zapata?”
    â€œYes. We told the sons of bitches to look in hell.” He stared up at her face, covered with mud and blood. “Angelita, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” His eyes closed.
    Angela shook him. “Do not die, my love.” She was done with haggling with God. She looked up at a sunset sky so glorious that God must surely live there. “Do not let him die, or I will curse you. From the flames of damnation I will curse your name! Do you hear me?”
    â€œWe hear you, Doña Angela.”
    Angela looked around at a line of women standing along the ditch’s rim, their faces shadowed by shawls. When they saw the bodies of their men, they pulled their shawls over their eyes and wailed. Angela should have been more understanding, but everyone had died and left her in charge. She hadn’t time for her own grief much less anyone else’s. The carnage was too horrific for her to absorb anyway. Her mind shut out emotions so she could do what had to be done.
    â€œThey are all dead but Antonio. We have to carry him out of here.”
    The women slid down the slope and helped her carry him back up it. They laid him on his back in the grass and Angela began scraping off the mud, trying to find the source of the flow of blood. When Angela probed Antonio’s shoulder he winced.
    Most of the women started wailing again, but one of them said, “ El gobierno took your mother. No one knows what became of your father.”
    Angela knew anyone in uniform was el gobierno to them. She didn’t bother to ask why the army of the revolution had turned on its own people. They wore the federal uniform now. They had become el gobierno . And anyway, men willing to murder were as easy to recruit as fleas.
    One of the women ripped a strip of cloth from the bottom of her skirt so Angela could bind it around Antonio’s shoulder. Antonio struggled to his feet and swayed.
    â€œCareful, Ugly.” Angela put an arm around his waist to steady him.
    She and the women helped him into the mare’s saddle and Angela mounted behind him. The women had brought a donkey cart to carry the bodies home. Angela gave the oldest of them the few pesos she had.
    â€œGracias, Doña Angela.”
    â€œGod go with you, mamacita . Ma xipatinemi. May you be well.”
    Angela put her arms around Antonio and took up the reins. The mare headed for her feed